This
review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained
therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to
copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions.
Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s
Exalted Permission
Title: Martin Chuzzlewit
Series:
----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating:
5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages:
954
Format: Digital Edition
Martin Chuzzlewit,
the Elder, has a falling out with his grandson, Martin Chuzzlewit,
the younger. It all centers around the Elder's ward, Mary Graham.
Both men being cut from the same cloth, ie, stubborn, they go their
separate ways. The Younger to seek his fortune so as to be able to
provide for Mary and the Elder amongst his other relatives to see if
any of them are worthy of being his heir.
We meet a veritable
cornucopia of people along the way.
Mr Pecksniff, a
relative of the Chuzzlewit's. A more self-righteous, moralizing,
hypocritical and thoroughly sleezy character you couldn't ask for.
The Elder goes to live with Pecksniff and his 2 daughters. The Elder
allows Pecksniff complete control over him so as to see if there is
even one drop of selflessness in him. Also living with Mr. Pecksniff
is Tom Pinch, a humble character who believes the best of everyone
and while talented, always believes that it is the genius in others
that makes his doings so good.
We have another
branch of the Chuzzlewit family introduced and the father there dies
soon after and the son, Jonas, takes over. Jonas is a mean, grasping,
simple, villianous fellow. He marries one of his cousins, Pecksniff's
younger daughter, for her dowry and then gets involved in a huge
money scam. It is revealed that Jonas murdered his father so he could
inherit and he, Jonas, then murders another fellow who knew of this
and was the leader of the money scam. Jonas ends up penniless and
commits suicide by poison on the way to jail to avoid the gallows.
The Younger meets
up with Mark Tapley, a jolly fellow who believes it is his duty to
serve under poor conditions so as to “bear up and be jolly”.
Martin and Mark head to American, get boonswaggled into buying a
swamp, almost die and then come back to Englad. Martin changes and
realizes how selfish he has been and begins working on becoming a
better man. Mark realizes that he's going to be jolly no matter what
circumstances he's under, so he marries the widower of a local inn
and decides to be a jolly taproom owner.
Tom Pinch, the
assistant to Mr. Pecksniff, has always believed that Pecksniff walked
on air. However, when he interrupts Pecksniff's plans to marry Mary
Graham so as to get an even greater grasp on the Elder and to hurt
the Younger, Tom has his eyes opened. He is secretly in love with
Mary himself but knows she loves the Younger and honors that love. He
does what he can to protect Mary and is fired by Pecksniff. He makes
his way to London to his sister's and a friends and begins working as
a clerk under mysterious circumstances. The friend, John Westlock, a
rich young gentleman, falls in love with Ruth Pinch and by the end of
the book they are married and Tom is living with them, bringing
kindness and gentleness to all he comes into contact with.
Pecksniff is taken
in by the money scam that Jonas is involved in and when the
masterminds abscond to America with all the money, Pecksniff's
estates became collateral for all the other people involved. The
Elder reveals that he knows of his villianous ways concerning Mary
and cuts Pecksniff out of his life for good. Pecksniff ends up a
drunken hobo.
The Elder and the
Younger are reconciled when both realize what asses they have been.
The Younger marries Mary with the Elder's blessing and they live
happily ever after.
It has been 10 years to the month since I last read Martin
Chuzzlewit. So this re-read was definitely due. It was also a
complete smashing success. Dickens give full reign to his verbosity
but this time around, I was able to appreciate the wordsmithing that
took place instead of being annoyed by the windy wordiness. Part of
it was that Dickens is making his characters fully fleshed out with
the long passages, the little, or not so little, passages of
dialogue. He is building these characters from the ground up and much
like a real person, they have quirks. Dickens gives us his
characters, fully quirked!
While this is entitled Martin Chuzzlewit, I found that Tom
Pinch was the real hero of this book. Dickens explores Selfishness
through his characters, deliberate or otherwise and Tom Pinch is the
antidote to that all. While others are sunk in schemes and plots, Mr
Pinch is nothing but kindess and love. He seeks out ways to help
anyone who comes across his path and takes upon his own back the rod
meant for another. There were times where I wanted to just shout “You
GO Tom Pinch!”
The rest of the side characters also made this book what it was. From
Bailey the little rascal boy to Mrs. Gamp, to the survivors of Eden
(the swamp Martin and Mark go to in America), to the politicians in
America. Oh man, Martin's time in America was great. Dickens doesn't
spare his cousins across the Pond one bit. Caricatured and lampooned,
Dickens shows us a land that has not yet gone through the fire of its
Civil War and it is not a pretty picture. Money, slander and violence
were the watchwords then. Which goes to show that not much has really
changed here in 175 years.
Now on to the two Martin's. None of this story would have happened if
either of them weren't such pigheaded boneheads. Thankfully, Dickens
doesn't make them the main focus of the story even while using them
as the skeleton upon which the whole book hangs. The various side
characters give us flesh, blood, emotion, etc, making for a pleasant
read. If it was just a book about the side characters it would have
gone “sploosh!” in a bloody, fluidy mess and if it was just a
book about the Martins, it would have been Skeleton War, and
honestly, who wants THAT in a Charles Dickens book?
 |
| yeah, yeah, I know. Putting in a gratuitous skeleton war picture in a Charles Dickens review. Shameless! |
I found that I had to almost literally hold myself back from racing
through this. Dickens was a wordsmith and I am finding that the goals
in reading something from a wordsmith are different from the goals I
have when reading something like Forgotten Realms. When I was in the
right mind frame, I enjoyed the long, convoluted passages immensely.
It was when I got impatient and tried to hurry things along that I
ended up wishing that Dickens hadn't been quite so verbose. I feel
that my time reading this was well spent though and that my time was
rewarded with some great storytelling and some really good writing.
Reading good writing is one of the best ways to learn how to spot bad
writing. I also gave this my coveted “Favorite” tag. Now you
know I mean serious business!
To end, this first step along my Dickens re-read path was completely
successful. I appreciate his skill even more and I find his stories
even more universal in touching upon humanity in all its glories and
in all its shame. Bravo Mr Dickens!
★★★★★
